After being unable to access the website or reports of the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), I contacted Khurram Parvez via FB. He said the website has been under repeated virus attacks & they are in the process of repairing & transferring the site to another domain. But meanwhile we can access the JKCCS reports on their blog.

I cannot recommend the reports highly enough for their rigorous documentation, to understand the monstrous character of the occupation, & see the quality of human rights activism in Kashmir.

https://jkccs.wordpress.com/

“The more India legitimises institutionalised violence against Kashmiri Muslims, the right wing zealots in India will assume the job of lynching Muslims of India on their own. The State patronised bigotry will promote bigotry in India. Indians need to save India.”

–Khurram Parvez

The Ramadan prayer of Kashmiri human rights activist Khurram Parvez:

“We will fast from tomorrow for a month with a special prayer each moment, May God end the tyranny…”

Wanting to re-read the 2015 report titled “Structures of Violence: The Indian State in Jammu & Kashmir” co-authored by Khurram Parvez, I went to the website of the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS). In that 800-page report, the JKCCS, the International Peoples’ Tribunal & Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons had documented cases of extrajudicial killings, forcible disappearances, & sexual violence back to the early 1990s.

I have accessed the JKCCS website countless times but every way I tried to access it today this warning alert came up disallowing me access.

What’s up with that?

I’m honored to have become friends with some Kashmiri doctors/rebels recently. Not because they’re doctors but because I respect so much their work in treating the victims of occupation, especially pellet gun victims, which must be emotionally & psychologically exhausting.

More than just their medical work, there were frequent photos last year of doctors & medical students protesting the use of pellet munitions & also protesting in solidarity with Syria, Palestine, Rohingya, & others.

We should take a moment to honor those men & women who see horrors the rest of us can’t even imagine, who treat them, & protest them.

Knew I’d seen that pucker-puss before: Nero (on the right) fiddled while Rome burned; Trump makes an ass of himself on the world stage while impeachment & criminal charges proceed at home.

Comparisons are boundless. Especially in derangement.

Got a friend request from a guy still hammering on about 9/11–as if life hasn’t moved way beyond that episode into full-blown Islamophobia. He had a post calling it a controlled demolition as part of an occult ritual to create a New World Order. He had me at occult. I had to let him go. We’re not going through those debates again.

Kashmir Reader published a report today that two “militants” killed by the Indian army last Thursday night in the town of Uri turned out to be elderly men who appeared to be in their 80s, far too old to be identified as militants.

This was discovered when local police brought the bodies late Friday night to the Gantamulla graveyard “where unidentified militants are buried.” The reporter suggested they were hoping to bury the bodies (evidence of a human rights crime) without scrutiny. But the gravedigger & locals, who were shocked at the discovery, are demanding an investigation.

This incident raises several concerns. When the Indian army reports on these hunt to kill operations, they say they were acting on reliable tips or “specific information” from their network of snitches that militants are holed up in an area or a house. But it’s quite clear in reading many of these reports that the army has no idea who they are hunting. So what exactly are these operations all about if the army doesn’t really know who it’s targeting. Is there no concept of due process in Indian law? Of course the answer is no, not governing the Indian military in Kashmir. The Indian army has impunity under the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).

Does a militant have to be accused of an actual crime to be subject of one of these hunt to kill operations? Or does just being fingered by someone in the snitch underground suffice to condemn them to execution? Clearly, if two elderly men were assassinated, the snitch underground is not working reliably. Maybe someone just had a grudge against them. Maybe the army targeted the wrong house. Maybe the seniors were related to a militant or got caught in crossfire or were killed just for the hell of it.

Since the Gantamulla graveyard is a designated burial ground for “unidentified militants,” we are led to believe that mistakes are often made by the army, that taking innocent human life in Kashmir is a “comme ci, comme ça” kind of thing. No big deal if you execute a couple old guys, someone’s beloved fathers or grandfathers. The Indian army reported that it executed 10 more militants since Friday. Will all 10 be identified & their families notified? Or will some end up in the graveyard for the unidentified?

This Indian soldier is eyeballing blood pouring under the entrance to the house following a tip that a “suspected militant” was hiding there. This is the site where Sabzar Bhat & Faizan Ahmad were killed. So based on reports from the Indian army, we are led to believe that the army, based on a tip, shows up armed to the teeth & starts shooting without knowing for sure who the hell is in the house. All sorts of mistakes must be made. Which is why they have a graveyard designated to hide them from public scrutiny.

Maybe the Indian army has impunity under the AFSPA but it doesn’t in the court of public opinion. We must stand with Kashmiris in demanding: End the occupation; Self-determination for Kashmir.May the two elderly gentlemen & other unidentified victims at Gantamulla Rest In Peace.

(Photo/Dar Yasin/AP

There’s a misanthropic fallacy circulating that Americans “in Ohio,” meaning working people, don’t care about Trump’s connections to Russia; they just want to know about jobs. They don’t care about US wars; they just want to get their hands on more consumer goods.

In fact, polls show 80-percent of Americans want an independent investigation of Trump & Russia. Not because they oppose peaceful US relations with Russia but because they oppose corruption. For years, polls have shown majority opposition to US wars. But with a compromised & fractured antiwar movement, there has been no place to express that.

So much for misanthropy. It’s a dead-end that gets you nowhere.

India means business with this internet block in Kashmir. There are almost no tweets from Kashmir, usually a source filled with on-the-spot photos & videos. Getting news won’t be easy but we trust in the commitment & inventiveness of Kashmiris, including those in diaspora, to let us know what is happening.

Just wondering if anyone knows about Basit Zargar who was covering the encounter in Tral yesterday?